1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical pickup device.
2. Background Art
In an optical pickup device in which a laser diode is mounted in a housing, a shortcut terminal for soldering is interposed between the terminals of the laser diode so as to prevent the electrostatic breakdown of the laser diode. FIG. 4 shows a circuit diagram of a laser diode 1 and a short-cut terminal 2 which are adopted in a conventional optical pickup device.
In the conventional optical pickup device having the circuit shown in FIG. 4, the electrostatic breakdown of the laser diode 1 is prevented by soldering the short-cut terminal 2 in advance for shortcircuiting.
With respect to the optical pickup device, not only is it necessary to keep the electrostatic breakdown of the laser diode prevented in its manufacturing line, but it is also necessary to keep the electrostatic breakdown of the laser diode prevented in the processing of mounting the optical pickup device in an apparatus to which the optical pickup device is set. For this purpose, when the laser diode is in an ungrounded state, the aforementioned short-cut terminal is conventionally shortcircuited by soldering both during the passage of the manufacturing line and after its mounting in the setting apparatus.
In addition, JP-A-5-335689 discloses an optical pickup device in which the terminals of a semiconductor laser are connected in advance in a shortcircuited state, and the shortcircuiting connection is broken when a voltage is applied to the semiconductor laser.
However, in the case where the short-cut terminal 2 shown in FIG. 4 is disposed on the side surface of the housing of the optical pickup device, although the operation of soldering and shortcircuiting the short-cut terminal 2 can be effected easily in the manufacturing line where the optical pickup devices are handled as single pieces, after the mounting of the optical pickup device in the setting apparatus, there has been a problem in that the other component parts on the setting apparatus side get in the way, and it is not easy to bring a soldering iron close to the short-cut terminal 2 disposed on the side surface of the housing, causing a decline in the operational efficiency at the time of soldering.
To cope with this problem, it is conceivable to dispose the short-cut terminal 2 on the rear surface of the housing of the optical pickup device. In this case, it is easy to solder and shortcircuit the short-cut terminal 2 after mounting the optical pickup device in the setting apparatus; however, in the manufacturing line where the optical pickup devices are handled as single pieces, there has arisen such a problem that, when the housing is reversed and the short-cut terminal on the rear surface is soldered, a lens unit attached by being merely inserted in a column on an obverse surface side of the housing becomes possibly dislocated from the column and comes off.
Furthermore, since only one short-cut terminal is conventionally provided, there has been a problem in that if the short-cut terminal burns, the optical pickup unit itself becomes unusable.